


Thank You

by FanFictionaries



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Healing, Heartbreak, Kissing, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23132311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFictionaries/pseuds/FanFictionaries
Summary: Things are difficult for Annie after the snap, more than anyone realizes.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s), Steve Rogers/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 31





	1. Part 1

It was a quiet night in Brooklyn. The nights always seemed so quiet now. Now that everyone was gone. Annie was sat on the fire escape, trying not to shiver at the light breeze that blew past her. It was mid-November and the weather was beginning to have a bite, especially at night. She hugged the jacket tighter around herself. His jacket. She liked to imagine that it still smelled like him, but after so many months of constant wear, it pained her to realize that the only scent it held was hers. It was one of the many things she had still relucted to give up. To move on from. She tried to remember the times that they would sit together out there and just look up at the sky. They would talk for hours about what life was going to be like for them. Now, all of that was gone and it was her. Just her.

On the outside, she really did look like she had it together. After everything was said and done, she’d taken a week to really grieve. To shut herself away and cry, but very quickly after she realized that nothing was going to change what had happened. Especially after Steve and the others had returned to tell everyone that Thanos and the stones were gone. Any hope of any of them returning was gone. She’d gone back to work. She’d connected with the friends and family that had survived. Hope, she told them. Hope for a better future and a brighter tomorrow. The ones they loved were gone, but they were still there. It was a gift and they shouldn’t squander it. The people they lost would want them to continue on. Everyone praised her. They told her they were encouraged by her strength. Grateful for her ability to rise above the grief and be there for those that could not.

She was such a liar. It was getting harder every day. Harder to lie through her to teeth to everyone around her. Harder to pretend like every moment that he wasn’t there didn’t feel like a slow, torturous death. Who was she to tell people that they should move on? She still lived in the same apartment they had shared. All of his things sat where he’d left them. The book he’d been reading still sat on the counter. The socks on the bathroom floor still laid behind the door. The sheets on their bed the same ones since before he’d left. They hadn’t been changed in almost a year and while Annie knew it was gross and unhygienic, she just couldn’t bring herself to take them off.

Slowly she dragged herself back through the window and into her apartment. Her feet and legs numb from the cold almost giving out under her. Tired. She just felt so tired all the time. Entering the small bathroom of the one-bedroom apartment, she stared at the toothbrush in the cup next to hers. His toothbrush. A deep and aching pang shot through her chest and she had to brace herself on the counter to keep from collapsing. Looking up into the mirror, she tried to recognize the person staring back, but it just felt like a stranger. A person she did not know. A tired, broken person. How could no one else see it?

All day long, she wore a mask of acceptance and happiness when in reality it was just that. A mask. And she couldn’t do it anymore. So many people had gone. Disappeared. What was one more?

She didn’t know if it was fate. Destiny. God? That made Steve decide to come by that night. He hadn’t been by since he’d gotten back from Wakanda. Since they’d lost everyone. Annie always assumed it was too hard for him. She didn’t blame him; she knew exactly how hard it was. She knew exactly how hard it was to be in a place that used to be so full of warmth and love and for it to feel empty. Foreign. Cold.

Steve had knocked on the door, holding some Chinese takeout from down the street and a 6-pack of beers. Annie wasn’t expecting him, but Steve knew that she was home most nights and that she often forgot to eat dinner. It was after the 5th time knocking that he began to worry. It was too early for her to be in bed. She could have been out, but something just hadn’t felt right to him. Pulling out his keys, he used the spare they had given him for emergencies only. The apartment was cold and dark. The lights were out and the window in the living room open, letting the chill fall air in. Setting his stuff down onto the kitchen island, he rushed to close the window and then looked around him. It was quiet.

“Annie?” he called out into the depths of the dark space.

Turning on a few lamps, he felt an unease take over him as he took in the space. Every trace of _him_ was still left untouched; clothes, keys, wallet, all of it sitting like he’d never left. Dishes sat piled high in the sink. Mugs and cups littered the coffee table and counters. Peeking into the bedroom, he found piles of dirty clothes and a stale scent in the air, like he’d opened a time capsule.

“Annie?” Steve called again; this time louder.

Entering further into the room, he saw the bathroom light on and the door slightly ajar. He didn’t have to walk into the room, to feel his stomach sink and know that whatever was in there wasn’t going to be good. He rushed towards the door on instinct, falling to his knees on the cold tile when he saw what was behind it.

“Oh Annie. No,” his voice wavered and cracked as if his heart was being ripped from his chest. He pulled her limp body off of the tile and into his arms.

“What did you do? Huh? What did you do?” he asked, looking down at her closed eyes and parted lips. The orange prescription bottle next to them caught his eye. Picking it up, he looked at the label through teary eyes. Pain medication. From when she had broken her arm a year before ice skating. She had refused to take it. It was empty.

“No, Annie. Come on,” he shook her. He needed her to wake up. God, he needed her to wake up. He shook her harder, tapping her face with his open hand. Nothing. He tapped her again, this time bordering on a full-on slap, but he didn’t care. He just needed her to wake up.

“Wake up, Annie. Wake up. Don’t do this. Don’t do this.”

“Steve?” it was quiet. A whisper.

He looked down, her eyes open the slightest fraction, bleary and unfocused. It wasn’t much, but it was something. It was her.

“Come on, sit up sweetie. Sit up,” said Steve, propping her up so she leaned head-first into the toilet.

“I need you throw it all up. Come on, that’s a good girl,” he had pleaded and cooed as he shoved his fingers down her throat, forcing her to wretch up the vile pills. And she did. They sat there on that bathroom floor until Steve was sure that she’d thrown up every last pill and every bit of stomach acid left in her. He’d placed a wet wash rag to her forehead and had her take tiny sips of water until she was finally coherent enough to be moved to the couch.

She was shivering, but her color was coming back and her vitals seemed alright. Apparently, he had gotten there just in time. Any longer and the pills would have dissolved more into her system. Steve turned the heat up in the apartment and grabbed every blanket he could find, before wrapping her and pulling her onto his lap on the couch. They sat there for hours. Neither of them saying anything. Just them and the silence and a cold, empty apartment.

“I’m sorry,” said Annie, her apology faint but cutting through the thick air around them.

She felt Steve take in a deep and shaky breath, “Why Annie? After everything, after everyon-” he choked on the words, swallowing thickly, “I can’t lose you too.”

The words hung in the air, filling Annie with an emotion she hadn’t felt in a very long time. Anger.

She flung herself from the blankets and Steve’s embrace and began to pace the room. “Why?! Why Steve?!” she yelled, really yelled at him; the man in front of her stunned into silence by her reaction.

“Do you honestly have to ask me why?! I am drowning Steve. I’m fucking _drowning_ without him. I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. I can barely get myself out of bed in the morning because it means having to face another day without him and _no one_ has noticed,” Tears began to stream down her face, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. The dam had burst, and everything came rushing out. Everything she had been keeping in for the last eleven months.

“Every day I walk out that door and I put on a smile and I tell people that everything’s going to be okay and that we should move on, but I _can’t_. I can’t! It’s like there’s this black hole where my heart used to be and any day it’s just going to swallow me up and…”

She felt her knees buckle under her and she collapsed to the floor, holding the worn jacket tighter around, “I just miss him, _so much_.”

“Oh Annie,” Steve’s voice was a whisper of sadness and regret as he rushed to her side and pulled her into his arms, “I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I should have been there for you. I should have known-I just, I miss him too. I miss him too.”

They stayed like that, wrapped into each as they both sobbed, finally feeling like they could express the loss they had both been feeling for so long.

They had found themselves on the floor the next morning. Their backs ached, but their hearts felt lighter as sunlight filled the small space around them. Then they got to work. Sheets were changed. Dishes were cleaned. Clothes were washed and put away. Annie had even found the will to put the radio on again as they worked. They scrubbed the tiny 900 square foot apartment till it shined. But most importantly, _his_ things were put away. All his books, his clothes, his keys and wallet, stored in boxes and put away in the closet. The two had made the unspoken decision that she would no longer live in a museum of what once was. A new day and a new future. For both of them.

Annie had just stepped out of her room, freshly showered and dressed when she saw his jacket laying across the back of the couch. Slowly, she approached it, touching the soft brown leather with her fingertips.

“I figured…” Steve spoke up, walking up behind her, “not everything had to go. It’s okay to still hang on to _some_ things.”

Annie nodded, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as tears began to well in her eyes. She clutched the jacket to her chest, hugging it tight and bringing it up to her face, she realized that it smelled like him once again. She swung around, looking at Steve with a confused expression.

“How—"

“I may have found some of his old cologne when I was cleaning out the bathroom. I figured you’d—oof!” Steve was cut off by Annie as she flung herself into his arms, hugging him tight.

“Thank you,” she spoke into his chest.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things aren’t any easier when they bring everyone back.

Steve was leaving. He was leaving and it was her fault. All her fault.

The crisp, late afternoon air filled Annie’s lungs in a nauseatingly fresh way. It shouldn’t be this beautiful out. The sun shouldn’t be shining cheerfully through the trees. The birds shouldn’t be chirping lightly around her. The surface of the lake shouldn’t be so serene and peaceful. The dusting of wildflowers shouldn’t be blooming, pushing through the forest floor to greet the spring day. No. This wasn’t how it should be at all.

This wasn’t how Annie imagined losing Steve. Truthfully, she hadn’t imagined losing Steve at all. He was her best friend. Her rock. Her soft place to land. Her bright sunny mornings and her blazing sunsets. He was her Chinese take-out and her late-night conversations. Her radio set to low in the afternoons. Her warm nest of blankets in the early mornings. He wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. He was supposed to stay. Unchanging. Immutable. Eternal.

But instead, he was leaving. And it was all her fault.

She hadn’t meant for it to happen. The comfortable and familiar. The slow and inevitable. But it had.

_“I went home this weekend,” said Margret, staring down at her hands as the group sat in rapt silence._

_“And how did that go?” asked Steve, brows knitted, pensive._

_“Um, I uh, I stood outside for a long time. Took just about all my strength to walk inside.” She breathed heavily, shakily before continuing, “It felt strange – to be there without them. I went in their rooms. Everything was just like it was the day I left, and I cried myself to sleep in my daughter’s bed. But it was…it was good.” Margret wiped away a stray tear as she smiled weakly at the rest of them._

_“We’re really proud of you Margret. That was hard. Probably the hardest thing you’ll ever do. It sucks, but the first step of healing is to admit your pain,” Steve said, his eyes briefly glancing in Annie’s direction. The group nodded in agreement, everyone giving their congratulations and equal condolences to Margret._

_“It’s important that we accept our pain as part of our healing,” began Annie, looking around at the familiar faces in their late-night support group. “If we try to bottle that pain and lock it up, it has ways of leaking through and eating away at us from the inside out. The only true way to lessen it, is to embrace it._ Feel _that pain. And yes, it’s messy and it hurts. God, it hurts like hell. But slowly, with the help of those around us, the pain gets manageable.” She glanced at Steve, sharing a small smile with him. “I don’t know if it ever truly goes away. But, eventually, the hurt dulls, and you find yourself having more good days than bad.”_

_“Alright folks. I think that’s enough for tonight. Thank you all for your time and your courage. It’s not easy, sharing these things. It takes guts to admit when you’re having a rough time. So, thank you,” Steve let the sentiment sink in for a brief moment, before moving onto a lighter topic. “As always, there’s coffee and donuts in the back. Feel free to stay and mingle.”_

_The two of them walked side-by-side down the sidewalk. The streetlights lit the snowy concrete as they stepped carefully, avoiding ice. It was a long winter. Mid-February and the snow continued to fall; the temperature cold enough to chill you to the bone. They chit-chatted idly about the meeting that night and how it had gone. Annie held a large bag of Chinese takeout in her arms while Steve held a six-pack of beer casually in his hand. Their weekly tradition since starting the support group._

_It had been Annie’s idea. Six months after the incident she had turned to Steve one Sunday afternoon as they sat in her living room, him sketching and her reading. Late day sun shone through her west-facing windows, casting streaks of warm light on the small space. Steve was sketching her; she knew he was. Once or twice he had commented that she was the perfect person for life drawings. She could sit for hours, barely moving, perfectly content as she read or thought. The sudden movement as she set down her book caught Steve off guard, and he looked up at her in confusion. She had told him that she wanted to start a group where they could help people deal with the grief of losing everyone after the snap. Steve had looked at her for a moment before standing and pulling her out of her seat and hugging her tightly. He had told her how excellent of an idea it was. How proud he was of her. He had even kissed her on the forehead—a sloppy, firm peck that left her cheeks blazing and her lips pulled wide in a smile._

_They entered her apartment. Once cold and haunted, now held a warm home-like quality. It was their favorite place. Setting the bag of food on the counter, she grabbed a few plates and some silverware and handed them wordlessly to Steve. The simple routine so well known to the both of them. Except, something was different that night. Maybe it was the way that Steve’s hands lingered on hers for just a second too long as he passed her the rice. Maybe it was how their conversation felt a bit less casual, a bit too forced. Or maybe it was how Annie’s heart beat uncontrollably in her chest as she looked at him. Really looked at him._

_Half a beer. That was all the time it took for a shared glance to become unbreakable. That was all the time it took for their lips to touch. All the time it took for hands to grip each other tightly and bodies to intertwine on the small couch. All the time it took for them to fall completely into each other._

Annie watched as Steve stood next to Bruce and Sam, no doubt outlining the details of his trip. Bruce was probably telling him all the dos and don’ts so that Steve could return safely. Annie laughed to herself. If only they knew. It was worthless. He wasn’t coming back.

“You know, if you want, I can come with you,” she heard Sam say.

Annie held her breath, letting herself hope for just a moment that Steve would say yes. Change his mind and say yes. If he said yes, then he’d have to come back.

“You’re a good man, Sam. This one’s on me, though.”

Her heart sank. She shouldn’t have let herself hope. She watched as he approached the man standing next to Sam. Bucky. His best friend. Another person he was leaving behind. Another person hurt because of her. Another layer of guilt piled high on her conscience. Turning on her heel, Annie walked away. She couldn’t watch this. She couldn’t watch them say goodbye. She definitely couldn’t watch him leave.

_“I can’t do this anymore Annie,” Steve whispered, arms wrapped tightly around her in his bed._

_“What?” she asked, pulling away from his chest to look down at him._

_Silent, jaw clenched, he stared down at their intertwined fingers and closed his eyes. As if shutting them would somehow wake him. Send him to a different world where he didn’t have to face what he was doing._

_“Us. I can’t keep doing this. It’s not fair to you or me or him.” He relaxed his hold on her hand. His fingers slipped past her own until she held nothing. He sat up, moving until he reached the end of the bed; sitting at the edge, his elbows braced on his knees as he rested his head in the space of his hands. Annie stared at his back. Never had the width of a bed felt so large. Expansive. Two peaks of a mountain separated by a deep cavern of sweaty sheets and wrinkled pillows. She wanted nothing more than to cross that cavern. Fall into the depths of it and crawl her way out to the other side._

_“I told you Steve. I just need more time. I’m going to tell him, but I just—”_

_“You still love him.” The words were harsh, but true._

_“Yes, I still love him. But not the way I used to Steve. Please, you have to understand,” Annie pleaded, already feeling the fresh sting of tears beginning to well at the corners of her eyes._

_“I understand completely Annie. But you can’t have us both!” Steve stood, walking across the room to slip his boxers back on before turning back around. Running a hand through his hair, he stood there, looking everywhere but where she wanted._

_“I don’t want you both! I want_ you _Steve.” It was her time to stand. Gripping the sheets to her chest, she rushed towards him._

_“Then why haven’t you told him?” Steve asked, his own emotions beginning to catch in the back of his throat._

_“Because he still loves me, and I don’t want to hurt him! He still loves me like the day he disappeared. And now he’s back and he expects me to feel the same. He expects me to feel the same because for him, being gone, it was like five seconds. But for me it was five years and I moved on!” Annie knew the tears had come. She could feel them, hot and salty and all too honest as they rolled down her cheeks. “I moved on and I was happy, and I never expected to see him again. And now he’s back, but I have you. And I_ want you _.”_

_“You think this isn’t hard for me too Annie? You think I don’t feel guilty every day? Guilty because a part of me wishes that he hadn’t come back?” Steve stopped, inhaling deep as the words of his confession resonated through the room._

_“I know it hasn’t been easy,” Annie reached a hand up, cupping his face in her hand, “I know. I’ll tell him. I’ll do it. I’ll do it and we’ll get through this together. I’m willing to do this together. Just as long as we get to be_ together.”

_Pulling her hand from his face, he intertwined it with his own. Turning it over, he placed a kiss to the back of it before stepping closer. When he spoke, he did so softly, “Annie…I can’t. If we tell him…he’ll never forgive me. I’ll lose my best friend.”_

_The urge to drop to her knees and beg coursed through her body. Never had she felt so desperate. Never had she felt so helpless. “I don’t—I don’t understand. If you don’t want to keep doing this, but you don’t want to tell him, then what do you want to do? What do you want me to do Steve? Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. Just tell me.”_

_Steve took another deep breath, the muscles visibly shifting as if bracing himself, “I’ve been thinking. I have to return the stones. What if, when I go, I don’t come back.”_

_“What?” Annie stepped back, her hand still holding firmly onto Steve’s like a lifeline._

_“When I went back with Tony, I saw…I saw Peggy.”_

_Just like that, her heart was shattering. No. Not shattering. It was being ripped from her chest and Steve was holding it in his hands. The sharp pain nearly stole the breath from her body. The only thing that kept her standing, however, was the white hot rage that filled the space where the blood pumping organ used to be._

_“Peggy? You’re going back to Peggy? After everything you said about moving on and closure, you’re going back?” It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense._

_“Annie. It’s what’s best for everyone,” Steve tried to explain himself, reaching his other hand up to hold her._

_“Screw everyone! I don’t care about everyone! I care about us!” Annie ripped from his embrace, stepping away from him. She couldn’t let him hold her. Not when he was pushing her away._

_“Annie, please try to understand. If I stay, I can’t not be with you. I can’t watch you with him. But I also can’t watch this tear him apart! I can’t see him like that again!” Steve stepped towards her, but Annie moved further back._

_“So, you’d rather spend your entire life without us both? With her? What was I to you Steve? Was I just some second choice?”_

_“Oh please. Like I wasn’t your second choice?”_

_It was quiet. The space around them still as if the world had paused for a moment. Annie fell back onto the surface of the bed behind her. But she didn’t feel it. The only thing she could feel was her heart, held firmly in Steve’s hands, being crushed. The blood and tissue forced through his fingers like playdough as he pulverized the last of it._

The distant, panicked sounds of Bruce and Sam flowed through the air, but Annie didn’t turn back. She couldn’t turn back. Walking, cold and numb, she found herself some hours later in her apartment.

Ten days. Ten days she didn’t leave the confines of her apartment. Ten days she ignored phone calls, emails, and knocks on her door. Once again, the small space had been turned into a prison. A place where she was held captive by the deep, resounding emptiness that threatened to engulf her. Chet Baker played on repeat as she sat on the couch, looking across the room at the chair that used to be his. Still. Unmoving. Like a statue. She sat for days, barely moving. Only thinking. Thinking of him. Thinking of them. Thinking of nothing.

_Yellow. Everything was bright and sunny and so incredibly yellow. Petals. Petals and feathers. Everywhere she looked, they floated through the air. Swirling through the space around her and settling on every available surface as Steve ran frantic through the bedroom._

_The last thing she expected to see after a long day of work was Steve Rogers trying to wrangle what appeared to be a rogue pigeon in a sea full of sunflowers._

_“What in the world is going on?!” she yelled over the cacophony of Steve’s curses and the pigeon’s frightened coos._

_Steve froze at the sound of her voice, standing straight and looking at her with panicked eyes, “Annie! You’re home early—ah!” he exclaimed as the pigeon decided to use his distraction as it’s moment of escape. Flapping past Steve’s face and out through the bedroom window. In a flash, Annie was across the room and slamming the window shut before turning around and surveying the mess that was her bedroom._

_“I’m so sorry Annie. I was trying to surprise you, but I forgot the window was open and the flowers must have attracted the pigeon. By the time I came back it had done this and then it wouldn’t hold still long enough for me to get it out and—”_

_Steve’s explanation was cut short as Annie flung herself into his arms, kissing him firmly on the lips. He kissed her back, hands coming up to cup the back of her head as his lips caressed hers sweetly. A few breathless moments later Annie pulled back, looking up at the man in front of her._

_“You got me sunflowers. How did you know they were my favorite?”_

_Steve blinked. “I didn’t,” he answered honestly. “They just reminded me of you. Beautiful, bright, resilient.”_

“Hey,” a deep and hauntingly familiar voice brought her back to reality. Looking up, she found the ocean blue eyes of a man she once thought she’d see never see again.

“Hey.” Her voice was hoarse and small.

Bucky sat. Not in the chair that once was Steve’s, but instead on the couch beside her. Reaching out a hand to her, Annie took it, finding comfort in its warmth. How could so much time pass, and the small act still feel so natural? They stayed like that, the soft lilt of trumpet and piano drifting through space. Only when the record came to a stop, the quiet scratch of needle to empty space heard clearly, did Bucky speak.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Annie. I know something happened between you and Steve.”

There it was. The moment where he’d leave too. She didn’t blame him. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. To have him hate her. Or worse, still love her, but unable to come to grips with the hurt she caused him.

“I’d be lying if I said if I said it doesn’t hurt, but I understand.”

What?

Annie looked up at him, eyes wide with confusion. He looked back at her. A small smile on his lips, but sadness in his eyes.

“I know that…I know that it was a long time. I can’t imagine what that must have been like. I can’t blame you for how hard this all must be. More importantly, I can’t blame you for moving on.”

“Bucky—”

“But I still love you.”

Annie looked down at the metal hand that encapsulated hers. She rubbed it firmly with her thumb, becoming familiar once again with the smooth surface and how it felt under her touch, “I’m not the same person James.”

It was true. She wasn’t sure who she was anymore, but it definitely wasn’t the same woman he kissed goodbye five years ago. She was broken. Damaged.

Bucky looked down at his lap, biting his lower lip and knitting his brows; trying to decide if he wanted to say his next words. “I know. But I’m willing to try. I’m willing to get to know this person. As slowly and as much as you want me to.”

“What if you don’t like who I am now?” asked Annie, waiting with bated breath.

“Getting to know you was worth it the first time. I can’t imagine getting to know you a second time will be much different,” said Bucky. He looked up at her; this time, his smile reaching his eyes.

Staring into the depths of ocean blue, she felt a heaviness lift slightly from her chest. She inhaled, feeling as though she could breathe for the first time in months.

“Thank you.”


End file.
